Windows 95 system Performance

Making Windows Perform

Windows 95 is one of the largest operating systems on the market, loading many internal functions and calls during startup and loading a large registry of file information. This registry necessarily responds slower to system requests and throughput based upon how much information is stored here from 32-bit software programs.

One of the most common misconceptions about Windows 95 is that it is a native 32-bit environment. This is not true. It must load all 32-bit kernels and drivers after a 16-bit DOS shell. This means that it has to modify and interpret anything loaded in the DOS system files to work with Windows 95. Loosely, this is called DOS Compatibility, or DOS Paging Mode.

Mouse Drivers, EMM386 and other DOS based Driver programs can cause these compatibility problems. The optimization of your computer for use as a CDR Mastering system requires you to have these features loaded prior to their 32-bit counterparts.

There are several issues within Windows 95 that should be addressed to acquire proper System Performance and Optimization. The first of these is within the Control Panel.

The introduction of the Windows 95 GUI presented the end user with many new options that he or she may not be familiar with. The first is the Device Manager. The Device Manager is a subsection of the "System" section of the '95 control panel. Within this feature, you can view hardware/firmware versions, release dates, and make BIOS level changes to the hardware. Some of these features will interfere with the transfer rate of your workstation.

The first potential problem is the CD-Recorder itself. Within this selection you will see that there are generally 3 options to include. The first is a Disconnect value. This is followed by Sync Data-Transfer and Auto-Insert Notification. All these settings should be turned off for the majority of your recording / imaging process. There are very few instances where you will need these features and in all others they will prohibit your recorder from writing any amount or type of data.

You must also insure that your CD Recorder does not load as a CD-ROM. In most circumstances, this will require a new driver that will interfere with CDR Publisher's Driver database. The exceptions to this are the Philips 2000 and the HP "SureStore" 4020i.

Also in the "System" section, under the "Performance" page, you can determine if your computer is using any DOS Compatibility for memory, hard drives, or CD-ROM/Recorders. If any of the above are true, or if your Virtual Memory is not being handled explicitly by Windows 95, your system will experience drastic cache hits and resource restrictions.

Further tips include the following; Running with a compressed disk is not recommended and will cause your writing process to fail. Specifying your own Swap File Space is also not recommended as Windows 95 can control these settings better when set to default.

One place where you can make Windows 95 faster is in the "File System" section of the "Performance" page. If your computer has greater than 16MB of RAM and already meets all of the above specifications, you can designate the primary role of your computer as a network server. This will assign more priority to operations that use I/O or Hard Drive access. If your computer has less than or equal to 16 MB of RAM, use the "Desktop Computer" setting. This is the default setting.

Lastly, if you do have a Yamaha 102 series, HP 4020I or Philips 2000, please make certain that the "CD-ROM" section under the "File System" section of the "Performance" page is set to the access speed of the CD Device. Depending on situation, the Supplemental Cache Size may also need to be decreased.